CISTERCIAN STUDIES SERIES: NUMBER TWO HUNDRED-TWENTY BENEDICT OF ANIANE THE EMPERor’s MONK Ardo’s LIFE CISTERCIAN STUDIES SERIES: NUMBER TWO HUNDRED TWENTY benedict of aniane The emperor’s monk Ardo’s Life Translated by Allen Cabaniss Foreword by Annette Grabowsky and Clemens Radl CISTERCIAN PUBLICATIONS Kalamazoo, Michigan Translation and Introduction © copyrighted by Allen Cabaniss, 1979 Translation revisions and supplementary notation, © Cistercian Publications, 2008 Foreword © Cistercian Publications, 2008 All rights reserved The work of Cistercian Publications is made possible in part by support from Western Michigan University to the Institute of Cistercian Studies. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Ardo. [Vita Benedicti. English. Selections] Benedict of Aniane : the emperor’s monk Ardo’s life / translated by Allen Cabaniss ; foreword by Annette Grabowsky and Clemens Radl. p. cm. — (Cistercian studies series ; no. 220) Includes index. ISBN 978-0-87907-320-6 1. Benedict, of Aniane, Saint, ca. 750–821. 2. Christian saints—France—Biography. I. Cabaniss, Allen, 1911– II. Title. III. Series. BX4700.B35A721325 2008 271'.102—dc22 2008003606 [B] Printed in the United States of America The Board and Editors of Cistercian Publications dedicate this book with affection and respect to the memory of Patricia Sommerfeldt Table of Contents Table of Abbreviations . viii A Review of Recent Scholarship By Annette Grabowsky and Clemens Radl . 1 Translator’s Introduction By Allen Cabaniss . 27 Translator’s Acknowledgments . 53 Editor’s Note . 57 THE LIFE OF BENEDICT OF ANIANE . 59 Short Index of Names . 111 Table of abbreviations EppKa Epistolae Karolini aevi. Berlin 1892. MGH Monumenta Germaniae Historia series Manitius, Geschichte Max Manitius, Geschichte der lateinischen Literaur des Mittelalters. Munich: Beck, 1911. Mühlbacher, Regesta J. Böhmer, E. Mühlbacher, J. Lechner, Die Regesten des Kaiserreichs unter den Karolingern 751-918. Innsbruck: Verlag der Wagner’schen Universitäts- Buchhandlung, 1908 PL J.-P. Migne, Patrologia cursus completus series Latina PLAC MGH Poetae Latini aevi Carolini SS MGH Scriptores SS rer. Merow MGH Scriptores rerum Merovingicarum The Second benedict a review of recent Scholarship BENEDICTUS II enedictus secundus—‘the second Benedict’—is how Benedict of Aniane was reverently referred to soon after his death.1 This nick- name establishes him as the legitimate successor to his famous bnamesake Benedict of Nursia, whose name to this day is equated with the Regula Benedicti, and who is popularly celebrated as the founder of bene- dictine monasticism. For quite some time, however, historians have realized however, that it was not Benedict of Nursia, but Benedict of Aniane who was in fact the ‘organizer of true benedictine monasticism’.2 BENEDICT OF NURSIA We owe all our knowledge of Benedict of Nursia to a single source. Gregory the Great, pope from 590 to 604, devoted to Benedict the second book of his Dialogues, a work which in four books describes the ‘Lives and Miracles of the Saints in Italy’.3 Any historian interested in Benedict’s biography will find reading this book inevitably disappoint- ing, as the actual facts Gregory delivers on Benedict’s life are exceedingly 1. Capitula qualiter observationes sacrae in nonnullis monasteriis habentur quas bonae memoriae Benedictus secundus in coenobiis suis alumnis habere instituit, ed. by Hieronymus Frank, Corpus Consuetudinum monasticarum 1 (Siegburg: Schmitt, 1963) 353. 2. Josef Semmler, Heinrich Bacht, ‘Benedikt von Aniane’, in Lexikon des Mittel- alters 1 (Munich: Artemis, 1980) 1864–1867, here 1864. 3. Gregory the Great, Dialogues, ed. by Adalbert de Vogüé (Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 1979) 2:126–248. 1 2 Benedict of Aniane sparse. This, as far as we can reconstruct it, is the outline of Benedict’s biography. Born in Nursia (Umbria) and from a respected family, he was sent by his parents to school in Rome. To avoid succumbing to the dissolute and licentious lifestyle there, he abandoned his studies and left the city to live as a hermit east of Rome, near Tivoli.4 His fame as a man of God spread rapidly, and he was soon appointed abbot of a monastery. His strict concept of the regular life, however, antagonized the monks, who proceeded to conspire against him. Benedict survived an attempted poisoning and left to establish a group of twelve monas- teries of his own in nearby Subiaco. Encountering hostility there as well, he moved to Casinum (Montecassino), where he destroyed an existing pagan shrine and replaced it with his most famous monastery. There he remained until his death. The few external historical events (famines, contacts with Goths) that allow an exact dating enable us to narrow Benedict’s lifetime down to the years from around 480/490 to 550/560. Available information therefore is anything but profuse. It was not Gregory’s goal, however, to compose a meticulous curricu- lum vitae of the saint. In the words of Karl S. Frank, it is rather an ‘in- terpreted biography’.5 The four fictitious dialogues between Gregory and his deacon Peter, including the lives of Benedict and forty-nine other Italian saints, were intended to serve as examples for Peter. The miracle stories were intended, not for historical instruction, but for religious edification—a common practice in theM iddle Ages. Gregory devotes the second book of these dialogues primarily to the miracles performed by Benedict as a way of portraying Benedict’s path toward sainthood. The hagiographical nature of the narrative is not the only thing to have aroused doubts among historians; even Gregory’s authorship has come into question. The British historian Francis Clark argues that Gregory cannot be considered to be the author of the Dialogues for a variety of reasons which he explicates in two studies.6 Clark assumes 4. Gregory the Great, Dialogues II, Prol. 1; Vogüé, 126. 5. Karl S. Frank, ‘Die Benediktusregel und ihre Auslegung bis Benedikt von Aniane’, Rottenburger Jahrbuch für Kirchengeschichte 9 (1990) 11–25, here 12. 6. Francis Clark, The Pseudo-Gregorian Dialogues. 2 volumes (Leiden: Brill, 1987), and recently idem, The ‘Gregorian’ Dialogues and the Origins of Benedictine Monasticism (Leiden: Brill, 2003). The Second Benedict 3 that the Dialogues were written by a ‘dialogist’ towards the end of the seventh century, roughly one hundred years after Gregory’s death. Clark’s views have not gained general acceptance, however, and Gregory, by common consent, continues to be credited with the authorship of the Dialogues, though some agree that he may not have published them himself.7 Another line of criticism has been aimed, not at the circumstances of their genesis, but at the very content of the Dialogue on Benedict. Johannes Fried recently posed the question: who was Benedict of Nursia? Actually the question should read: did Benedict of Nursia really exist, or was he in reality perhaps nothing more than a ‘myth, a pious legend, a phantom’?8 Provoking this query is the fact that the sole source for Benedict’s life was not written down until half a century after his death. Gregory did not know him personally, though he mentions numerous authorities who told him all about Benedict.9 Yet no further information about these men can be found anywhere. Similarly, we are unable to substantiate the story of Benedict by comparison with another source. Another point of contention for Fried is the fact that Benedict— supposedly quite famous in his own lifetime—appears to have remained virtually unknown in Italy until the eighth century.10 In fact, the first traces of his veneration are found in Gaul, not in Italy. According to an ancient tradition, a delegation from the abbey Fleury-sur-Loire was sent to Montecassino in the late seventh century to obtain relics of Benedict and his sister Scholastica for Gaul.11 In Italy, by contrast, there are no 7. Paul Meyvaert, ‘The Enigma of Gregory the Great’s Dialogues: A response to Francis Clark’, The Journal of Ecclesiastical History 39 (1988) 335–381; Pius En- gelbert, ‘Neue Forschungen zu den “Dialogen” Gregors des Großen. Antworten auf Clarks These’, Erbe und Auftrag 65 (1989) 376–393; Johannes Fried, ‘Gedächt- nis in der Kritik: Chlodwigs Taufe und Benedikts Leben’, in idem, Der Schleier der Erinnerung. Grundzüge einer historischen Memorik (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2004) 333–357 and 434–441. 8. Fried, Gedächtnis in der Kritik, 356. 9. Gregory the Great, Dialogues II, Prol. 1 (Vogüé, 126); see also Kassius Hallinger, ‘Papst Gregor der Grosse und der hl. Benedikt’, in Basilius Steidle, ed., Commentationes in regulam S. Benedicti (Rome: Herder, 1957) 231–320, here 254 f. 10. Fried, Gedächtnis in der Kritik, 353 f. 11. Fried, Gedächtnis in der Kritik, 354. 4 Benedict of Aniane signs of veneration: his tomb was neglected, and no one bore his name.12 Not until the early eighth century did Rome begin to show signs of a certain reverence for Benedict of Nursia, and around 718, under Abbot Petronax, Pope Gregory II set about rebuilding Benedict’s monastery at Montecassino, which had been destroyed by the Lombards at the end of the sixth century.13 In general, this meager framework of concrete data—amplified by miracle stories and containing very few individual elements, mainly provided by place names—is so vague and unspecific that, theoretically, it could be applied to virtually any founder of any sixth century abbey.14 The same also applies to the clichéd description of Benedict of Aniane’s life.15 THE AGE OF THE COMBINED RULE Veneration for Benedict of Nursia did not begin immediately after his death, nor, as we said, did it begin in Italy. Nor did the rule commonly ascribed to Benedict gain immediate widespread acceptance. Gregory’s Dialogue contains a brief chapter in which reference is made to a rule reputedly written by Benedict.16 This rule, however, is characterized merely as a particularly suitable rule for monks; details about its structure or content are not disclosed.